Awards

NEWS: 2014 Youth Media Awards—Tracy Weighs In

The 2014 Youth Media Awards were announced this morning! Last year I had so much fun posting about by reaction to the Youth Media Awards announcement that I can’t resist a repeat this year. But if you prefer to skip my (mostly) approving commentary, feel free to skip directly to the official Press Release.

John Newbery Medal

Medal Winner: Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by ate DiCamillo
A new book by Kate DiCamillo automatically goes on my Newbery contender list, and Flora & Ulysses lived up to expectations. It’s a smart and sensitive tale about friendship with plenty of laughter and adventures along the way. Ulysses’s poetic compositions add a literary element to the romp, and the integration of graphic novel-style panels is both innovative and unexpected. Although overall I was much more enthused by 2012’s MG offerings than those I read in 2013, Flora & Ulysses is a Newbery winner I can get behind.

Newbery Honor: Doll Bones by Holly Black
With Doll Bones released for middle-grade readers and The Coldest Girl in Coldtown for the YA market, Holly Black had a pretty busy year. Both titles generated a fair amount of awards buzz, but Doll Bones is the title I expected to see honored. I’m happy to see it make the list.

Newbery Honor: The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes
Last year’s winner skewed a bit young in the Newbery reading age, as does The Year of Billy Miller, a simple yet engaging book about a year in the life of a second grader. It’s rich in character development and offers up four vivid demonstrations of important childhood relationships in bite-size, accessible pieces for newly independent readers. I didn’t expect to see it on this list, but like last year, I am glad to see that younger chapter-book readers aren’t being ignored. Bravo!

Newbery Honor: One Came Home by Amy Timberlake
This is a book that only recently appeared on my radar thanks to its inclusion on NPR’s Best Books list. It sounds like a very intriguing mystery indeed.

Newbery Honor: Paperboy by Vince Vawtor
So… I took this one home ages ago and still haven’t gotten around to reading it yet. I guess I should get on that.

**What’s Missing:
Navigating Early by Claire Vanderpool
I fully expected Claire Vanderpool to take home a second Newbery. Instead, Navigating Early earned her a Printz Honor. Given the recent inclusion of “younger” MG novels among Newbery winners and honorees, I wonder whether there is a concerted effort among the committees to shift tween books (for the 10–14 audience) more toward the YA end of the awards spectrum?

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
I adored Counting by 7s, a heartwarming, surprisingly funny book about a twelve-year-old girl coping with losing her parents and the various connections she makes in the process. Because some reviewers felt the ending was a bit too perfect, I wasn’t really expecting a nod… but I hoped for one nonetheless.

Randolph Caldecott Medal

Medal Winner: Locomotive, illustrated and written by Brian Floca
I am soooo happy about this one. The text, images, and typography of Locomotive work together seamlessly to convey movement and wonder, skillfully evoking the sounds, sights, and even feel of 1869 train travel. (Also a Sibert Honor Book)

Caldecott Honor: Journey, illustrated and written by Aaron Becker
This was my favorite fiction picture book of the year and the title I expected would receive the medal. The magisterial artwork of this wordless picture book is wonderfully expressive and creates a strong narrative without any need of words—plus, it plays fantastic homage to Harold and the Purple Crayon. Read my review.

Caldecott Honor: Flora & the Flamingo, by Molly Idle
This wordless, lift-the-flap gem is yet another impressive example of visual storytelling. For me, it created the feeling of live animation—perhaps no surprise, given Idle’s background in animation. Read my review and/or check out the fabulous book trailer to see what I mean.

Caldecott Honor: Mr. Wuffles!, illustrated and written by David Weisner
Silent picture book guru David Weisner was a frontrunner on pretty much everyone’s Caldecott list. Mr. Wuffles! is an imaginative, comical tale that makes wonderful use of composition and color. Anyone else find it interesting that all three Caldecott honor books are wordless? Clearly wordless picture books were all the rage in 2013, and it’s no wonder with such fabulous examples.

**What’s Missing:
The Mightly Lalouche, illustrated by Sophie Blackwell and written by Matthew Olshan
I knew this one was definitely an underdog, receiving little attention in the myriad Mock Caldecott races, but I loved this quietly captivating story of the little man who could. The pen-and-ink illustrations featuring three-dimensional cut outs create a
bold, colorful, collage-like style that is both charming and reminiscent
of a silent film after color is added in.

Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award
(Aka, the category where I am always shamefully underinformed…)

Medal Winner: P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia
This one is also sitting at home in my out-of-control TBR pile. However, given that I haven’t yet read its prequel (One Crazy Summer) either, I haven’t been very motivated to pick it up. So I guess now I have a bit more incentive!

King (Author) Honor: March: Book One, written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell
Also sitting at home. At least this year I’ve heard of the books on the list! I have heard glowing reviews of this graphic-format work, and I am planning to read it ASAP.

King (Author) Honor: Darius & Twig by Walter Dean Myers
Walter Dean Myers is consistently awesome, but I haven’t read this one either. Or his other 2013 release (Invasion), though I have been on the library hold list for a while now.


King (Author) Honor: Words with Wings by Nikki Grimes
I generally enjoy Grimes’s poetry and fiction… so how did I miss hearing about this title? This is why I love awards lists—I discover so many wonderful books that I might’ve otherwise overlooked.


Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award

King (Illustrator) Medal: I, Too, Am America, illustrated by Bryan Collier and written by Langston Hughes
The imaginative use of collage and watercolor illuminates the text perfectly. I approve.

King (Illustrator) Honor: Nelson Mandela., illustrated and written by Kadir Nelson
Yay! I have yet to encounter a Kadir Nelson illustration I didn’t adore. His paintings in Nelson Mandela do a fabulous job of conveying tension, emotions, and subtext.

Michael L. Printz Award

Medal Winner: Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
Sedgwick uses recurring motifs and characters to build a novel of linked vignettes, creating an eerie novel of impressive style and structure. Unfortunately, the shifting of characters and timelines does not allow for much in the way of character development, so at the end I was pretty disinterested in the fate of Eric and Merle. Still, the literary merit is undeniable, so despite my personal ambivalence about the book, I’m not surprised (or even unhappy) to see it recognized by this year’s committee.

Printz Honor: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
With lovely prose meditations and vibrantly realized characters, Rowell captures the pureness of first love without glossing over the ugly, awkward parts of life. I thought Eleanor & Park might be overlooked due to its extreme popularity, but I am glad to be proven wrong. Read my review.

Printz Honor: Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal
I haven’t yet read this layered, historical fiction novel, but it sounds so our-of-the-ordinary that I am very much looking forward to it.

Printz Honor: Navigating Early by Claire Vanderpool
As I have already noted, I expected this title to fall in the younger age category. In fact, I thought it would win the Newbery. An Odyssey-like adventure punctuated by intricate plotting and rich details, I am happy to see it honored regardless of the category.

**What’s Missing:
I thought Patrick Ness’s More Than This might get an honors nod, but I was wrong. Still, although I love Ness and appreciated the symbolism of his novel, it wasn’t one of my favorites of the year. Far, Far Away had a lot of buzz too. Personally, my favorite unrecognized title was All the Truth That’s in Me by Julie Berry. (I’m not naming Charm & Strange only because it nabbed the Morris Medal!)

Other ALA Award winners announced this morning include:

Charm & Strange by Stepahnie Kuehn,  William C. Morris Award winner
I was completely mesmerized by this emotionally intense story about isolation and madness that weaves together two separate narratives. A fantastic combination of voice, character, and pacing kept me on edge from start to finish. In my opinion, this win was SO well deserved! Read my review.

Better Nate Than Never by Tim Federle, Stonewall Honor Book
Nate’s inner monologue and offbeat personality are laugh-out-loud funny,
but the story also managed to dexterously address deeper issues, such as
bullying, disappointment, family, religion, and sexuality. However, all
of this is handled with a light touch, so that Nate is allowed to shine
all on his own, without judgment or labels. I didn’t think about this book when considering possible Stonewall recipients (probably because it is geared toward the MG market rather than YA), but I am so happy to see it recognized. I am eagerly looking forward to reading the sequel 🙂

Niño Wrestles the World, illustrated by Yuyi Morales, Pura Belpré (Illustrator) Award
This child’s picture book in which a young boy imitates the melodramatic world of Mexican wrestling is hilarious and wonderfully illustrated.

Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina, Pura Belpré (Author) Award
I quite enjoyed this book and appreciated the authentic cultural details.

For a complete list of awards, winners, and honorees (if you’re not sick of awards lists by now), you can read the ALA Press Release.

NEWS: 2013 Youth Media Awards—Tracy Weighs In

… Cause what ya’ll really want to know is what I think, right? Hey, humor me here.

So, the Newberys, Caldecotts, Printz Awards, and other key ALA book awards were announced yesterday, and I was rather proud of myself for having read so many of the honorees. Here’s how things played out (with a little commentary from me :)).

John Newbery Medal

Medal Winner: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
This book was unique and absorbing, bittersweet and altogether lovely. I approve 1oo%. Many of the past medal winners have skewed more toward tweens (10–14), but The One and Only Ivan is perfect for younger ages as well. Again, I approve.

Newbery Honor: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
Not long after I started reading this book, I found myself thinking This is a book that will win awards. I also thought that it was a book that might have more appeal for adults than kids, one of those books that adults really, really want kids to love, but which turn out to be right only for that small, perfect audience. Who will love it with a passion. It’s undeniably well written, but I couldn’t bring myself to get excited about it although I enjoyed it and admired it in a impersonal kind of way. But if you (or your child) always wished Oliver Twist had a bit of dark fantasy mixed in, this may be just the book for you. (Okay, that sounds really intriguing. Maybe I should give this one another go…)

Newbery Honor: Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin
In my mind, this one was pretty much a shoe-in for a nod. I’m not a huge reader of juvenile nonfiction, but the storytelling here was compelling and informative. Thumbs up. Bomb was also the winner of the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Award and of the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

Newbery Honor: Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage
I was so excited—and the teeniest bit surprised—to see this one get an honor nod. While there is no magic in this book in the supernatural sense, it is magical nonetheless. Turnage’s storytelling—the sense of place, character, voice, and tone—here is fantastic, and Mo is an unforgettable heroine if there ever was one.

**What’s Missing: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
I adored Wonder and firmly believe it should be required reading for every upper elementary or middle school student. And then their parents and older siblings need to read it too.

Randolph Caldecott Medal

Medal Winner: This Is Not My Hat, illustrated and written by Jon Klassen
Personally, I thought Klassen was cheated out of a Caldecott last year for I Want My Hat Back. He’s a genius when it comes to providing subtle visual cues to punctuate the sly humor that makes both of his “hat” book shine.

Caldecott Honor: Creepy Carrots!, illustrated by Peter Brown and written by Arron Reynolds
This was one of my absolute favorite picture books of 2012, and I am pleasantly surprised to see it get a nod here. I loved the cinematic feel (one review I read likened it to a Hitchcock horror movie—for kids of course), and the palette of orange, black, and gray. A fascinating combo of kiddie horror and humor. Well done, Caldecott committee.

Caldecott Honor: Extra Yarn, illustrated by Jon Klassen and written by Mac Barnett
So they’re really making up for overlooking Klassen last year. Although the text/story of Extra Yarn didn’t completely do it for me, I loved Klassen’s artwork—which is what counts for the purpose of this award.

Caldecott Honor: Green, illustrated and written by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
This is the book I expected to win, though I am quite pleased with the final outcome. Seeger’s work here is innovative, and the wonder of Green is made abundantly clear in this book trailer.

Caldecott Honor: One Cool Friend, illustrated by David Small and written by Tony Buzzeo
I liked it, but didn’t love it, which is why it didn’t make the cut for our list of the Best Children’s Picture Books of 2012. But, as with Extra Yarn, I quite liked the illustrations. So I’m totally “cool” with this one too.

Caldecott Honor: Sleep Like A Tiger, illustrated by Pamela Zagaresnski and written by Mary Logue
Once again, I liked the book and the illustrations but it didn’t really make a strong impression on me one way or the other.

**What’s Missing: Oh, No!, illustrated by Eric Rohmann and written by Candace Fleming and Nighttime Ninja by illustrated by Ed Young and written by Barbara DaCosta, both of which I expected to make the list. And—while I always saw it as a long shot—I really, really love Ashley Wolff’s artwork in Baby Bear Sees Blue. I also think illustrator Doug Santat did some phenomenal work this year. But then, everybody can’t win 🙂

Coretta Scott King (Author) Book Award
(Aka, the category that totally breaks my streak of having read the material…)

Medal Winner: Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illustrated by Brian Pinkney
Okay, not only does this one break my reading streak—I hadn’t even heard of this book yet. But then I already admitted that I’m not much of a juvenile nonfiction reader…

King (Author) Honor: Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis
A gentle yet powerful picture book about bullying from the side of the (belatedly regretful) bully, and one of our picks for Best Children’s Picture Books of 2012

King (Author) Honor: No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller by  Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
 I’ve heard fabulous things about this one, and it is currently sitting at home waiting for me to find time to read it.




Coretta Scott King (Illustrator) Book Award

King (Illustrator) Medal: I, Too, Am America, illustrated by Bryan Collier and written by Langston Hughes
I read it and loved the art. Unfortunately, the Langston Hughes text didn’t quite resonate for me (I know; awful, right?). As a result, the book wasn’t very memorable for me. But I may have to take anthor look.

King (Illustrator) Honor: H.O.R.S.E., illustrated and written by Christopher Myers
I am not familiar with this title 🙁 .

King (Illustrator) Honor: Ellen’s Broom., illustrated by Daniel minter and written by Kelly Starling Lyons
Don’t know this one either.

King (Illustrator) Honor: I Have a Dream., illustrated by Kadir Nelson and written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Yay!!!! Enough said.

Michael L. Printz Award
As a side note, I must say: There was LOTS of debate yesterday and into today on librarian listservs and blogs about the recent winners of this category, some stating that the winners are often too literary to appeal to teen readers or that engaging stories are overlooked in favor of technical writing or literary experimentation. As this is an award for literary excellence, I would say the winners should be extremely well written. But in my view, literary merit depends upon that magical element of good storytelling as well as good technical writing. I’m not going to comment on how these specific qualities do or don’t apply to the specific winners and honorees (past or present) because here’s the thing: judging books—anything really—is SUBJECTIVE. Rant over.

Medal Winner: In Darkness by Nick Lake
I haven’t read this one yet and have read mixed reviews, but can’t wait to read for myself.

Printz Honor: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Just finished this last weekend and immediately it became my Printz sleeper favorite. It’s compulsively readable plus incredibly well written (but not in a showy or gimmicky way). I couldn’t be happier that Sáenz also nabbed the Pura Belpré (Author) Award and the Stonewall Book Award. I really have to read his highly praised book Last Night I Sang to the Monster ASAP.

Printz Honor: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
I know people who absolutely LOVED this book and others who found it so confusing they couldn’t finish it. Based on early buzz, I thought for sure it was going to be selected as the medal winner. It’s still sitting at home in my (rather tall and wobbly) to-be-read pile.

Printz Honor: Dodger by Terry Pratchett
Haven’t read this one, and haven’t heard too much buzz up till now. But you can never count out Terry Pratchett, and I will get to this one someday…

Printz Honor: The White Bicycle by Beverly Brenna
This one was a surprise to many; at least many of the commenters to my various listservs hadn’t yet heard of it. But then, that’s what I love about book awards: the chance to discover wonderful books that might’ve been otherwise overlooked.

**What’s Missing: Lots of people are up in arms over the exclusion of John Green’s A Fault in Their Stars, which I adored and agree to be incredibly well written. At the same time, I didn’t think it was a perfect book and am not overly disappointed. Maybe I’m just too happy about Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.  And A Fault in Our Stars wasn’t completely left out as it garnered the Odyssey Award for the audiobook.

Other ALA Award winners announced yesterday include:

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman,  William C. Morris Award winner
I found this to be an excellent debut novel featuring a well-developed fantasy world and an intriguing take on dragons. I can’t wait for the sequel.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth, William C. Morris Award finalist
I found this book quite engaging, but for me it begins to drag a bit in the middle. I actually had to set it aside for a while. That being said, even though I wasn’t reading it for a while, the writing and characters stayed in the back of my mind. I completely understand why the book has been compared to The Catcher in the Rye, although Cameron is a gay girl in 1980s small-town America and the book actually takes place across several years (as opposed to a few days). That being said, I was surprised that it wasn’t a Stonewall Honor Book

For a complete list of awards, winners, and honorees (if you’re not sick of awards lists by now), you can read yesterday’s ALA Press Release.

NEWS: 2012 National Book Award Finalists Announced

Awards season has arrived! National Book Awards finalists were announced yesterday; winners will be announced on Wednesday, November 14 at the National Book Awards Ceremony. So far, there’s been no drama like last year’s “accidental” nomination of Lauren Myracle’s Shine.

The finalists are:

FICTION

This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz
A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers 
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers    **ARC up for grabs in our 2012 Fall Giveaway

NONFICTION

Iron Curtain The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 4 by Robert A. Caro, 
The Boy Kings of Texas by Domingo Martinez
House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid

POETRY

Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations by David Ferry
Heavenly Bodies by Cynthia Huntington
Fast Animal by Tim Seibles
Night of the Republic by Alan Shapiro,
Meme by Susan Wheeler

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

Goblin Secrets by William Alexander
Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos
Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick
Endangered by Eliot Schrefer
Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

So… have you read any of the nominated titles? Are there worthy titles you think are missing from the list? Let us know your verdict and picks!

NEWS: Awards Round-up

Book awards season is in full swing. So, here we go: It’s round up time!

ALA Awards/ Lists
On the 23rd, the American Library Association’s Children’s and Young Adult Services announced the winners for the coveted Newbery, Caldecott, and Printz Awards—plus several other annual awards and lists that they oversee. The winners of the major awards were as follows:

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
2012 PRINTZ WINNER/2012 MORRIS DEBUT WINNER
Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos
2012 NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER
A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka
2012 CALDECOTT MEDAL WINNER

Whaley’s debut was certainly an impressive one, and easily made my list of top teen books of the year. In my recent Book Picks list, I mentioned that the book reminded me of Flannery O’Connor. I am not a bit surprised that it swiped not one—but two!—YALSA awards. I was also pleased to see Inside Out & Back Again listed as a Newbery honor book. On the other hand, I was somewhat shocked to see no love for Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls. Possibly, the intended audience skewed a little too old for Newbery and a bit young for the Printz.You can visit the ALSC website to see the full list of this year’s award winners and honorees for children’s and teen literature. (The Best Books for Young Adults list hasn’t been updated yet.)
Edited to Note: The 2012 list is now up! The Top 10 List is at follows:

  • Carson, Rae. The Girl of Fire and Thorns.
  • Cohen, Joshua C. Leverage.
  • King, A.S. Everybody Sees the Ants.
  • McCall, Guadalupe Garcia. Under the Mesquite.
  • Myracle, Lauren. Shine.
  • Ness, Patrick. A Monster Calls.
  • Sepetys, Ruta. Between Shades of Gray. 
  • Stiefvater, Maggie. The Scorpio Races. 
  • Taylor, Laini. Daughter of Smoke and Bone. 
  • Zarr, Sara. How to Save a Life.

Several of our 2011 favorites made the top 10—A Monster Calls, Between Shades of Gray, The Scorpio Races, and Daughter of Smoke and Bone.


Edgar Nominees
The American Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar nominees were also recently announced. There are multiple Adult Fiction categories, as well as categories for Juvenile and Teen literature. Martha Grimes was was named the newest MWA Grand Master.

Academy Awards
Last but not least, Oscar nominations were announced yesterday and it is interesting to note how many of the Best Picture nominees are based on books.

That’s five out of nine! Other book-based films garnering nominations include The Adventures of TinTin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Ides of March, The Iron Lady, Jane Eyre, My Week with Marilyn, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and War Horse.

If you are interested in more book-to-movie adaptations, see the Read It. Watch It. page on our library website.

NEWS: National Book Award Winners Announced

The 1,223 books submitted for the 2011 National Book Awards have now been pared down to one winner in each of the four categories. And the winners are…

Fiction


Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker largely absent, he doesn’t show interest in much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fifteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pit bull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.

As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to a dramatic conclusion, the unforgettable family at the novel’s core—motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to face another day.  —Jacket Copy

Nonfiction


The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. The man was Poggio Braccionlini, the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. His discovery was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.

The copying and translation of this ancient book fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.   —Jacket Copy

Poetry


Head Off and Split: Poems by Nikky Finney

The poems in Nikky Finney’s fourth collection, Head Off & Split, sustain a sensitive and intense dialogue with emblematic figures and events in African-American life: from Civil Rights matriarch Rosa Parks, to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, from a brazen girl strung out on lightning, to a terrified woman abandoned on a rooftop during Hurricane Katrina. Her poet’s voice is defined by an intimacy, which holds a soft yet exacting-eye on the erotic, on uncanny political and family events, like her mother’s wedding waltz with S.C. Senator Strom Thurmond, and then again on the heart-breaking hilarity of an American President’s final state of the union address. Artful and intense, Finney’s poems ask us to be mindful of what we fraction, fragment, cut off, dice, dishonor, or throw away, powerfully evoking both the lawless and the sublime.   —Jacket Copy

Young People’s Literature 


Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai

For all the ten years of her life, Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by—and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape—and the strength of her very own family.
This is the moving story of one girl’s year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

   —Jacket Copy

You can see video of the ceremony here. Salvage the Bones, The Swerve, and Inside Out & Back Again are all available for check out from the Library.

NEWS: National Book Awards snafu

There’s been another development in the National Book Awards‘ category for Young People’s Literature. The addition of a sixth book was quickly announced last Wednesday, October 12th, due to an error on the committee’s part. In explanation, Harold Augebraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation, stated: “It was our mistake, and we take full responsibility…For security reasons, we do everything by phone, and we don’t write things down when [the judges] transmit the titles to our staff. And someone wrote it down wrong.” Apparently, someone mistook the word Chime—the intended nominee—for Shine. Augebraum claimed that for confidentiality reasons, the involved titles would not be made public and that the six finalists would stand. But…then author Lauren Myracle was asked on Friday to withdraw her novel Shine from contention.

Myracle, who is known for writing popular but often controversial books for both middle grade and young adult readers, consented. In a statement released through her publisher, Amulet Books, she stated “I was over the moon last week after receiving the call telling me that Shine was a finalist for the award. I was later informed that Shine had been included in error, but would remain on the list based on its merits. However, on Friday I was asked to withdraw by the National Book Foundation to preserve the integrity of the award and the judges’ work, and I have agreed to do so.”

So… I understand that mistakes happen. But it is incredible to me that the staff member writing down the book titles didn’t take the time to confirm the author. I also think that the way this mistake was ultimately handled—claiming that the involved titles would remain confidential and then requesting a withdrawal of Myracle’s book several days later—was another bungle. What are your thoughts?

NEWS: National Book Awards Finalists Announced

The 20 finalists for the National Book Awards were announced yesterday in Portland’s Literary Arts Center. Later, an additional nominee—Chime by Franny Billingsley—was added to the Young People’s Literature category. Winners will be announced on Wednesday, November 16. The finalists are:

FICTION

Andrew Krivak (The Sojourn), Tea Obreht (The Tiger’s Wife), Julie Otsuka (The Buddha in the Attic), Edith Pearlman (Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories), Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones).

NONFICTION

Deborah Baker (The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism), Mary Gabriel (Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution), Stephen Greenblatt (The Swerve: How the World Became Modern), Manning Marable (Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention), Lauren Redniss (Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout)

POETRY


Nikky Finney (Head Off & Split), Yusef Komunyakaa (The Chameleon Couch), Carl Phillips (Double Shadow), Adrienne Rich (Tonight No Poetry Will Serve), Bruce Smith (Devotions)

YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE

Franny Billingsley (Chime), Debbie Dahl Edwardson (My Name Is Not Easy), Thanhha Lai (Inside Out and Back Again), Albert Marrin (Flesh and Blood So Cheap), Lauren Myracle (Shine), Gary D. Schmidt (Okay for Now)

So what do you think? Are there any glaring omissions or surprises? Personally, I am very surprised by Chime‘s nomination (though I have to admit I haven’t read it yet!). In fact I haven’t read any of the nominees, though there are several—The Tiger’s Wife, Salvage the Bones, Radioactive, Inside Out & Back Again, Shine, and Okay for Now—that I’ve been looking forward to.

Have you read any of the nominees? Which titles do you want to read? For further details on the finalists and book summaries, check out the official site of the National Book Foundation.


**NOTE: The Library currently owns many of these titles; others are on order.